Obama Admits He Wouldn’t Send Troops to Defeat ISIS Unless There Were a Second 9/11

President Obama told the New York Times what he wouldn’t tell the American people: he doesn’t think ISIS is a fundamental threat to America and he wouldn’t send a military force capable of defeating ISIS to the Middle East unless the United States suffers another 9/11-sized terrorist attack or larger. This is a striking admission.

“In a recent off-the-record meeting with columnists, [President Obama] emphasized that the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, did not threaten the United States in a fundamental way…. As a result, he said, the danger does not merit an all-out military response involving American ground troops. He would send significant numbers of those forces to the Middle East, he added, only in the event of a terrorist attack in the United States so catastrophic that it all but paralyzed the country with fear.”

There is no other way to say it. This is a dereliction of duty from our Commander-in-Chief. America doesn’t act abroad without purpose. Our military men and women have fought and died to prevent another terrorist attack like 9/11 from happening. It is only by their sacrifice that America has been kept as safe as it has.

By willfully removing the option of significant military force from the table, President Obama acknowledged that he would rather wait a catastrophic terrorist attack than do whatever is necessary to stop such an attack from happening. And if an attack were to happen, he would only act because of political necessity after the country is “paralyzed in fear.” What is missing from the President’s calculus is the option to act forcefully and decisively to defeat our enemies before they are capable of launching massive attacks against our homeland.

We’ve known for years that the President has the wrong approach to foreign policy. President Obama has only succeeded in leading America’s retreat from the world stage, opening space for aggressors like ISIS, Iran, and Russia to step in. But this admission something altogether new. Never before has a President so clearly abandoned his constitutional duty to keep America safe.